102 Place-Names 



with the Enghsh church. In Tydd St Giles, both Kirkgate and Church 

 Lane occur, and in Thriplow to-day there is a Church Street where in the 

 tliirteenth century a neighbouring field was Kirkefeld. So, too, in Newton- 

 in-the-Isle, the modem Church Croft is paralleled by the seventeenth- 

 century KyrkelandejieU, and other lost field-names give further examples 

 of Scandinavian influence. A similar interchange occurs in the second 

 element of Landwade. The modern spelling represents the English wa'd 

 "ford" but early forms often have the Scandinavian vad. 



In the north of the County, on the Lincolnshire border, there are such 

 names as Gate End Bridge (Parson Drove), Eaugate Field, Fengate Field, 

 Kirkgate, and Newgate (all in Tydd St Giles). These contain the Scandi- 

 navian ^a/^a "road", common in such street-names as Waingate in Sheffield, 

 Briggate in Leeds, etc. It is often impossible to distinguish this from the 

 common word gate. Kirkgate, for example, might well mean "church- 

 gate", but Eaugate and Fengate can hardly mean "gate leading to the 

 river or the fen", nor does the common gate make much sense in Gate End 

 Bridge. Clear proof, however, is forthcoming from Kyrkestrete (1393) in 

 Leverington described in i486 as "regiam viam vocatam le Kirkgate", and 

 from a "highway called Crossegate" in 1438 at Tydd St Giles. 



In the Isle of Ely there is no parish-name of Scandinavian origin. The 

 evidence suggests the naming of minor places in a more or less settled 

 time, and the substitution of English terms by similar, corresponding 

 Scandinavian ones, some of which were common to various districts 

 where the settlement was not strong. 



Trench influence is much less in evidence. Marmont, the name of a 

 priory in the fens in UpweU, was transferred from France, mirum moiiteiu 

 "the famous hill". Not far away, in Elm, is Beauford, "the fair ford", 

 wliilst in Wilhngham an old earthwork, Belsars HiU, is identical in origin 

 with the Durham Bellasis and the Belsizc of Hertfordshire and Northamp- 

 tonshire; these are derived from bel assis "the fair seat", and the name thus 

 loses its historical associations with the fictitious Belasius, the knight who, 

 in the campaign against Hereward, acted as the Conqueror's Commander- 

 in-Chief 



Apart from these names, French influence is confined to the com- 

 memoration of the Norman famihes of Everard de Beche in Papworth 

 Everard; Agnes de Papworth in the erroneously canonised Papworth 

 St Agnes; the ColviUes in Weston Colville; the Boletecs in S waff ham 

 Bulbeck; and in such manorial names as De FreviUe Farm in Great 

 Shelford, D'ovesdale Manor Farm in Lithngton, Lacy's Farm in Duxford, 

 and Lacies Farm in Grantchester (from the Lacis, earls of Lincoln). 



' E. Conybeare, Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely (1910), pp. 283, 292. 



